


Quarantine Queen

by distantroar



Category: Half-Life, Half-Life: Alyx
Genre: Body Horror, Breeding, Corruption, Deviates From Canon, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Infestation, Loss of Identity, Masturbation, Mental Disintegration, Mutation, Pregnancy, Sexual Content, Smut, Spoilers, Transformation, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:02:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29339490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distantroar/pseuds/distantroar
Summary: After a series of disasters as she was moving through the abandoned Vodka Factory in City 17, Alyx finds herself with a broken hand, alone in the factory, with daylight quickly fading and with it her last hopes of getting away from the blind zombie known only as Jeff. Will she manage to get out, or succumb to the unknown Xen infestation that seek to conquer both her and her world?This story diverges from the canon of Half-Life: Alyx around the point where Larry was attempting to help Alyx through a particularly perilous section of the factory.
Relationships: Blind Zombie (Jeff)/Alyx Vance
Kudos: 6





	1. A Nasty Tumble

“See? He’s totally predictable.”

Alyx watched as the abomination named _Jeff_ of all things stumbled forward to inspect the shattered remains of the bottle that Larry had just dropped. Even as experienced as she was with scavenging and traversing urban environments, heights like these still made her feel a little dizzy. From up where they were, it had to be about forty feet or so down to the bottom level.

“But… he will rip your arms off if he finds you.”

 _Great_ , she thought, looking away from the dizzying drop with apprehension. Far down in the gloom, the creature bellowed and moaned, sending echoes throughout the (mostly) abandoned distillery. Larry gave a motion to continue on. Her heart plummeted as she realized what she was about to have to do.

In front of her was about a 10-foot-wide expanse of nothingness. A thin projection of wire mesh, presumably the support structure of what had once been a floor, was what she had to leap to, to continue onward.

“You’ve got this,” Larry murmured, watching her intently. “Get a bit of a running start, and you’ll be fine.”

Alyx nodded, swallowing her fear, and backed up. Assuming a runner’s stance, she steeled her nerves a final time, and bolted out and across. For one heart-stopping moment she thought she wouldn’t make it, thought she’d find herself suspended over a short expanse of nothingness and then… _Jeff chow._ But then she felt the rough impact of her left touching down. Her momentum carried her across fully, and she caught herself with a panted laugh.

“Excellent!” Larry whispered. “You’re a natural. Be right back.” Larry vanished for a moment, reappearing through the doorway on the other side. “It’s through here.” He motioned for her to come, poking his head down through a hole in the upper level.

Traversing the narrow ledge above Jeff was bad enough—but wouldn’t you know it, someone just _had_ to go and put a _door_ open blocking her way. Carefully, so as to not upset her balance, she closed it so that she could continue on past it. Somehow this upset a bottle sitting just beyond it which rolled off, and clattered once more to bits upon the concrete 3 stories down.

With a roar like a tortured elephant, Jeff stumbled forward, drawn by the noise.

“Come on,” Larry repeated, extending his hand. “And be careful to hold your breath coming through this passage, it’s choked with Coughers.”

“Coughers?” She asked, crouching on the metal walkway.

“Yeah, these alien fungus things. Pumping spores out every which-way. They’re nasty—and you don’t want to cough with Jeff around.”

 _Fair enough_ , she thought, and crept forward towards Larry.

A deep shriek of bending metal rang out from underneath her—and then the metal support underneath her suddenly wasn’t there. Perhaps it was some small structural defect. She should’ve thought to investigate why the bottle had rolled down. All of these thoughts and a million more rushed through her panicked mind as she plummeted. It was the sudden burst of adrenaline that saved her life in that moment—rather than pushing away from the support that had collapsed under her, she shoved her fingers into the mesh and swung _with it_ as it fell away from its moorings. Part of it was still secured to the masonry, so it swung rather than fell.

Rather than plummeting to certain demise, Alyx found herself swinging down and through a boarded-up section of wall. _Crash._ Just as she broke through the wooden boards, she struck her head on the concrete above her. Her last thoughts before she lost consciousness were the dim awareness that at least one of her fingers was broken… and that Jeff was _very angry_ at the noise she’d just created.


	2. A Stark Realization

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things aren't going so well for our dear protagonist... And one supposes where there's smoke, there's probably fire. Poor Alyx.

_Pain_.

It was Alyx’s first thought as she returned to bleary-eyed consciousness.

Opening her eyes was the greatest struggle she’d endured thus far, as it seemed her whole body was sluggish in its movements.

“Ugh…”

Finally, she was able to force one eye and then the other open, and found herself staring up at the gloomy, darkened ceiling of the room she’d swung herself into. Beyond the slant of light falling into the room from the broken boards she’d crashed into, she was in almost total darkness. Funny little lights were dancing in front of her eyes. _Damn, that was one bad concussion_ , she thought, reaching up to cradle her head with her right hand.

The movement alone almost made her scream. Grinding her teeth into each other, she stifled the sound into something like a quiet yelp. Somewhere, now much too uncomfortably close below her, she heard the snuffle and yip of what had to be Jeff. She looked at her hand and saw that all of her fingers were broken. The RUSSELLS were warped beyond repair—they weren’t even lighting up, much less engaging their miniature graviton manipulators.

“Oh my god…” she whispered, gingerly glancing at her left hand. While her fingers were fine, they were a little sore. _No problem. I_ _’ve had to be a lefty before, I’ve got this._ She thought, reassuring herself. While the left-hand RUSSELL ( _should they be called_ _“A RUSSELL” in the singular?)_ was also badly damaged, it still seemed to be picking up nearby signals—though the scrambling near the distillery was still in effect.

“Okay Alyx, you’ve gotten yourself out of scrapes before. This is just another bad turn. You’ll get out of this.” She turned and looked out of the hole in the wall that she’d fallen through and could see that the sun was setting outside. Her heart sank. Still, little motes were dancing in front of her eyes.

She’d been out for far too long and was now facing the prospect of being trapped overnight with Jeff. She wondered momentarily if Larry had stuck around but figured he had assumed the worst and had moved on. Turning around, she clicked the light attached to her left glove to get a feel for the best way to proceed, and that was when true panic began to set in.

The room wasn’t full of little lights—it was full of spores. On the wall across from her, the fleshy, oozing taint of Xen contagion had affixed itself in a mottled pink and green mass. Tendrils had spread all across the floor, the ceiling, and out the only door into the room. Dotted throughout the spongey membrane were various boils and postules, a colony of Snappers, and what looked like a foamy goo in a corner near a barrel marked “Infestation Control.”

Suddenly she was overcome with a wracking fit of deep belly coughing—more like wheezing, honestly. As she did, a quantity of the floating spores exploded out of her like a puff-ball mushroom. She’d been breathing— _was_ breathing—whatever was in the air. And had been, the entire time she’d been out cold.


End file.
